Summary United Airlines automatically changed seats for 18,000 passengers last month - 40% of eligible flyers. New feature notifies passengers of preferred seat availability and rebooks automatically. United's app now offers live radar maps for weather updates and allows rebooking for disruptions.
Changing seats for free In March, United Airlines announced a new feature to its app that, at first, was only available to a limited number of people. The new feature notifies passengers if their preferred seat becomes available after booking and even rebooks passengers automatically. Since rolling the feature out and testing it, United has made it available to all passengers.
According to an announcement earlier today, the Chicago-based airline was able to automatically change seats for more than 18,000 passengers last month. This represented almost 40% of eligible passengers, within the same class of service. As of now, the feature only works in the airline’s mobile app, where passengers can select their seat preference.
If a preferred seat becomes available, it will be changed and United will notify the passenger. The process is simple: Request your desired seat in the mobile app if your preferred seat type isn’t available at the time of booking your flight. Select where you’d like to sit , including preferences for window or aisle seats, exit rows or bulkhead seats.
Get automatically assigned and notified about your new seat assignment if your preferred choice becomes avai.